storyteller types: the survivor
storyteller types: the survivor
weekly story work exercise
If you’re new here, Story Work is the name of my current book-in-progress. It describes a process of reflecting, reclaiming, and reimagining the stories of our lives. It involves looking at your life experiences as creative material that you have the power to shape.
The weekly story work topics cover universal life themes with references from literature, philosophy, science, and spirituality; offering perspectives that spark ideas for personal growth and creative expression.
Paid subscribers receive Story Work exercises every Sunday night at 8 pm et.
This week’s story work exercise is open to all subscribers.
The first memoir I read about someone living with schizophrenia was The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Dr. Elyn Saks, a law professor at USC. Growing up, I didn’t have a name for my mother’s condition, but I knew that voices and hallucinations haunted her. I knew she had delusions about secret organizations conspiring against her and episodes where she believed that I was part of those conspiracies.
When she was diagnosed during my freshman year of college, I finally had a name for what tormented her. Still, I only knew what it was like to watch her and be her daughter. I had no idea what it was like to exist in her altered reality.
I wanted to know what she went through. When did it start? How does it feel? Is she scared? Does she remember who she was before?
By the time I read The Center Cannot Hold, I’d learned about the statistics, risk factors, and symptoms associated with schizophrenia. But the facts didn’t give me the deeper understanding that I craved.
I never got to hear my mother’s lived experience from her perspective.